Harper Lee to Publish Second Novel

You've waited decades, and now the wait is over. Harper announced today that Go Set a Watchman, a novel that Harper Lee completed in the 1950s and shelved, will be released July 14, according to AP. Essentially a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird--though it was finished earlier--the book follows Scout as an adult.

"In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called Go Set a Watchman," the 88-year-old Lee said in a statement issued by the publisher. "It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became To Kill a Mockingbird) from the point of view of the young Scout."

Lee was close friends with Truman Capote, and she was featured in both films based on his life, Capote and Infamous. Although she has never officially come out, many suspect that Lee is a lesbian and the Publishing Triangle listsTo Kill a Mockingbird as one of the 100 Best Gay and Lesbian novels. This story of a long, lost book may sound like a strange apocryphal tale, but Lee says she was just being a good, young writer at the time.

"I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn't realized it (the original book) had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."

The book is set in Maycomb, Alabama, during the mid-1950s, during the Civil Rights Movement.

"Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus," the publisher's announcement reads. "She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood."

The publisher plans a first printing of two million copies of the 304-page book. Seems you have your summer reading list started early.